Welcome to sNews Puffmac.
1. The default
pages(); function in sNews 1.6 does two things. First, it displays the four default sNews pages - home, archive, contact and sitemap - in the top-right corner of the default sNews template (index.php). The home is there by default... while archive, contact and sitemap are generated by functions of the same names. Second... each new page you create from the new pages admin panel, get added (dynamically) to the same menu. This is fine if you only want to add a couple more pages... but it you want a site where you can create dozens of pages... this menu won't fit them all in (of course). And, you cannot switch any of them on and off.
Bramsyuur created a small modification that adds 4 more settings values to the settings dbase table, and 4 check-boxes in the Settings >> Contents panel that allows you to switch (on or off) display of the home, archive, contact or sitemap pages. Also, Equilni has created
2 functions to replace the default pages function - default_pages and extra_pages. These are very useful - default_pages(); displays the 4 default sNews pages in their normal location (wherever pages(); did)... and extra_pages(); will display all the pages you create in another location... such as in a side-bar.
2. Yes. sNews does display the number of articles within a given category in brackets beside the category name in the Categories menu. You can also switch this feature on or off in the Settings >> Contents Panel.
